SWTOR is great for one play through per faction. The non class-specific quests make it too tedious to rerun the factions with a different class.
They definitely goofed up by not letting the stories take one of two paths, ala WOW and the independent continents.
This is exactly what happened to me. Leveled 2 toons to the max, one imp and one republic. With only 5 or so class missions per planet,It definitely got tedious.
I found SWTOR to be just an awful experience. I tried with 2 different toons to make it to max level. It bored me to tears. I finally gave up.
Same reaction I had to WoW. TOR on the other hand I found (for one playthrough per faction) to be the best themepark MMORPG I had ever seen.
Peace is a lie, there is only passion. Through passion, I gain strength. Through strength, I gain power. Through power, I gain victory. Through victory, my chains are broken. The Force shall free me.
Personally I fount swtor very VERY bland. The single player component is pedestrian and the MMO component sorely lacking.
Its just very mediocre all round & does nothing particularly well. Being Star Wars I had such high hopes but I can't even be bothered to go back now that its F2P.
Unless a lot has changed (doubt it) with how the stories work, this is how it works:
You have 4 planets (2 classes on each planet) you stay there for about 8 or so levels (if you follow the story, the more you follow it the faster you're likely to leave it), You are then pushed off into the capital planet, 1 for each side for a total of 2 planets (4 classes on each planet), this is the most dense amount of classes you'll see regularly, all of the classes for that side are together. You stay there for a bit longer until you get your ship (or in some cases get it back).
At this point you are free to go anywhere you like, you can even go to Hoth at a very low level (i've done this), you'll probably die at that level but you can do it, There also won't be any quests but you can do it. You can go to almost any planet on the map and fight monsters if you wish. The planets don't open up one at a time as you progress through the story after you get the ship. They all open up once you get your ship repeat they all open up at the same time. (some of the expansions might be different, i think theres one planet that is end game that doesn't open up until you are level 55, but that I believe is only level gated, not story gated). The only big difference I see here is that you can't go to the republic worlds version or their capital planet, that sucks and i still would love to see that changed, but they don't open up like A>B>C>D>E>F like the article seems to make it sound. It goes like this A>B>all the rest of the planets>F(which is level gated).
Granted you have a story to follow but after the first two worlds you can ditch those and just do the world planet/bonus version of said world once you are high enough level. Should they open up the story for more replay? Yeah thats a given but they also got to take into account if thats feasible or a good idea and they have determined that isn't at this time. You do periodically go back and do stuff on these starter worlds, Sith warrior storyline is a good example, sadly it's if i recall correctly in an instance so pfft but you do at least end up back on that world for a little bit.
The way the game works is very similar to other MMOs including the two listed, once you get out of the starting area you can go to other parts of the world (or in swtor case other worlds themselves). If you go to higher level areas before you are ready in either of those two games the mobs will destroy you, and you won't have any quests...just like swtor.
PS. oh yeah, doing the whole cata thing..from what i remember didn't work out too well for them, so yeah theres that.
Help me Bioware, you're my only hope.
Is ToR going to be good? Dude it's Bioware making a freaking star wars game, all signs point to awesome. -G4tv MMo report.
Originally posted by TouchMyCookie Agreed, however do you know how long that initial contract is?
Last I heard, they still had nearly 3 years to go on the contract. For those commenting on the EA/Disney 10-year agreement, please bear in mind that that particular overarching contract was more generic, just for any kind of Star Wars game, not specifically SWTOR.
Going to disagree with this post, Mainly because how you level is entirely up to you outside of the Class Quest
You don't have to do the planet quests, or the other quests on a Planet..You can level entirely by doing space quests if ya want..Or you can just pvp to 50, Or you can just Dungeon to 50...Or you can just do Heroics on a Planet and nothing else.
In fact doing Heroics on a Planet and nothing else is how i lvled my first toon...I didn't see most of the content in the game until I finished my 3rd guy...
Oh, there's other ways to level, certainly, GSF, on-rails space, PVP, Flashpoints, but that wasn't my point. The actual core game is what I was focusing on. All those other bits are far more easily moddable because they're add-ons.
Wow what a pathetic post. Let's see here I'll write an article touch on every talking point the haters have been spamming forums for the last 2 1/2 years. I'll leave out most of the actual points that makes this game better then the rest. Then I will finish with doom and gloom about how Swtor won't survive.
Geez sorry buddy but Swtor is the top 2 or 3 western mmos. Rehashing all the haters taking point into some pathetic " review" and having mmo post makes him no different then the ones who hijack every thread. I guess desperation is setting in on extreme level for some omg they are bringing housing and guild ships! I better write a review and claim doom and gloom for Swtor! Geez what a joke.
I must say that this comment amused me a great deal. And you should be aware that I'm actually more often accused of being a paid shill because I pull more punches about the game than most people do, so it amused me to be lumped in with the haters. Also, your estimation of where SWTOR ranks in Western MMOs? Almost right. It's #2 behind WoW, per my interview with Jeff Hickman and Bruce Maclean on this very site last month. They said over 1 million unique logins per month, so it's not a game that's doing poorly.
On the other hand, I am willing to acknowledge what I perceive to be the game's limitations despite being an open SWTOR fangirl. Me, I'd freakin' love it if BWA could thump down twenty new planets and let us run around willy-nilly in terms of story. However, their basic core design makes that developmentally prohibitive. It could be done with enough devs back on the payroll and willingness to pony up for the excellent voice-acting the game is deservedly famous for. Do I see that happening? Nope. I'd love to be proven wrong on the matter, though.
Last I heard, they still had nearly 3 years to go on the contract. For those commenting on the EA/Disney 10-year agreement, please bear in mind that that particular overarching contract was more generic, just for any kind of Star Wars game, not specifically SWTOR.
It's not specific to TOR, but there is no reason to believe it doesn't include it. And it seems unlikely that if Disney thought of TOR as a failure that they would give EA a ten year contract for all things Star Wars, they wouldn't want the IP in the hands of people they thought would devalue it.
Peace is a lie, there is only passion. Through passion, I gain strength. Through strength, I gain power. Through power, I gain victory. Through victory, my chains are broken. The Force shall free me.
Last I heard, they still had nearly 3 years to go on the contract. For those commenting on the EA/Disney 10-year agreement, please bear in mind that that particular overarching contract was more generic, just for any kind of Star Wars game, not specifically SWTOR.
It's not specific to TOR, but there is no reason to believe it doesn't include it. And it seems unlikely that if Disney thought of TOR as a failure that they would give EA a ten year contract for all things Star Wars, they wouldn't want the IP in the hands of people they thought would devalue it.
Technically EA doesn't hold a contract for online titles, disney retained those.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Technically EA doesn't hold a contract for online titles, disney retained those.
I thought they only retained "online" in the sense of browser based/mobile gaming? They made it pretty clear with statements around the time they shut down LucasArts that they had zero interest in doing in house "core" gaming.
Peace is a lie, there is only passion. Through passion, I gain strength. Through strength, I gain power. Through power, I gain victory. Through victory, my chains are broken. The Force shall free me.
Originally posted by Fenrir767 This article I have to say is very amateurs written in large part due to the fact that I don believe the reviewer has played the game recently.
First of all if they wanted to add new planets for lower level ranges they could, just don't have them as part of the class quest and be optional however besides bored 55s how many would run this new content the justify the investment.
2nd comparing WoW and SWTOR in terms of levelling paths is ridiculous, WoW has had 10 years worth of content and in only recent expansions revamped their lower level content. Vanilla WoW had two options roughly for your level ranges Kalimdor or the eastern Kingdoms. SWTOR when compared to vanilla WoW alternate paths in terms of varying class stories then the choice if running multiple FPS, PVP or heroics that was not in Vanilla.
LOTOR does provide you with more options but the epic storyline is still the epic storyline and you hit the same zones in the same sequence no matter what toon you're on.
This article is attempting to make a point while not looking completely at the negatives in the games it is comparing SWTOR to which suffer or have suffered from similar issues in their earlier days. I remember trying to level an Alt in Vanilla wow there was nothing encouraging me to finish it was brutal, I was pretty much just repeating most of what I had done.
So I have to disagree with this column as it skews the facts to make its point....
I suppose leveling my Smuggler from 43-49 on a work night last weekend to finish Chapter 3 doesn't count.
And there are definite negatives to the other games. However, when focusing on my core point - is it easy for BWA to revamp older content versus how these other games do it - then I think it still stands. Bear in mind, I remember when Blizzard swore up and down until they were as blue as their forum posts that we'd never have flying mounts in EK or Kalimdor because it would take too much work to pretty much rebuild their game from the ground up, and they took the time and effort to make it happen anyway. I just see an inflexibility in BioWare's design despite the epic storylines, and I can see how it might impact on the game's future.
Would it be awesome to have side questing planets for something new to do while leveling via story only (not PVP, GSF, FPs)? Sure it would! However, take a look at what BioWare would have to do to make it happen. They'd have to rewrite every single breadcrumb quest to give options to go to multiple places. You know, like those class quests that tell you to go to two different planets, and one is higher level than the other, so the implication is that you do the lower-level one first? Well, if there were multiple NPCs to point you multiple directions of equal level, that'd be really cool! Sort of like how LotRO has NPCs in various towns that will point you to the regional quests in another area if you wanted to.
However, BioWare would have to not only write those quests but animate them and their cutscenes, get the slew of voice actors to do the voices, the whole nine yards. It's far more intensive than WoW or LotRO plopping a new zone in because of the voice acting and the need to make the writing seamless with the rest of the game. It would be good to have, and I fully acknowledge (as I did in the article, if you noticed) that a game that's not even three years old isn't going to have the options in-place that a game nearing ten years old is going to have. I find it ironic, considering I've seen far more folks complaining about the game not having every single feature these more mature games already have, like Athena springing fully formed from Zeus' brow.
Actually, I find it kind of lame to critize this game on its strongest feature: SWOTR is a unique mmorph where for the first time in my history of mmorpgs I rarely found myself being boring to level up, because of the story lines. So yes this has some downsides like poor replayability when you want to level up for example a shade after having leveled a sage, but other than that I find SWTOR's story telling a magnficient addition to the mmo content out there, worthy of praise rather than attempting to emphasize its downsides.
Beyond that, SWTOR I do not find SWTOR to best mmorpg out there, for other reasons, such as a lack of endgame sufficient to keep me interested.
"If I had the stars of the darkest nights or the diamonds from the deepest ocean, I would forsake them all for your sweet kiss"
Originally posted by Fenrir767 This article I have to say is very amateurs written in large part due to the fact that I don believe the reviewer has played the game recently.
First of all if they wanted to add new planets for lower level ranges they could, just don't have them as part of the class quest and be optional however besides bored 55s how many would run this new content the justify the investment.
2nd comparing WoW and SWTOR in terms of levelling paths is ridiculous, WoW has had 10 years worth of content and in only recent expansions revamped their lower level content. Vanilla WoW had two options roughly for your level ranges Kalimdor or the eastern Kingdoms. SWTOR when compared to vanilla WoW alternate paths in terms of varying class stories then the choice if running multiple FPS, PVP or heroics that was not in Vanilla.
LOTOR does provide you with more options but the epic storyline is still the epic storyline and you hit the same zones in the same sequence no matter what toon you're on.
This article is attempting to make a point while not looking completely at the negatives in the games it is comparing SWTOR to which suffer or have suffered from similar issues in their earlier days. I remember trying to level an Alt in Vanilla wow there was nothing encouraging me to finish it was brutal, I was pretty much just repeating most of what I had done.
So I have to disagree with this column as it skews the facts to make its point....
I suppose leveling my Smuggler from 43-49 on a work night last weekend to finish Chapter 3 doesn't count.
And there are definite negatives to the other games. However, when focusing on my core point - is it easy for BWA to revamp older content versus how these other games do it - then I think it still stands. Bear in mind, I remember when Blizzard swore up and down until they were as blue as their forum posts that we'd never have flying mounts in EK or Kalimdor because it would take too much work to pretty much rebuild their game from the ground up, and they took the time and effort to make it happen anyway. I just see an inflexibility in BioWare's design despite the epic storylines, and I can see how it might impact on the game's future.
Would it be awesome to have side questing planets for something new to do while leveling via story only (not PVP, GSF, FPs)? Sure it would! However, take a look at what BioWare would have to do to make it happen. They'd have to rewrite every single breadcrumb quest to give options to go to multiple places. You know, like those class quests that tell you to go to two different planets, and one is higher level than the other, so the implication is that you do the lower-level one first? Well, if there were multiple NPCs to point you multiple directions of equal level, that'd be really cool! Sort of like how LotRO has NPCs in various towns that will point you to the regional quests in another area if you wanted to.
However, BioWare would have to not only write those quests but animate them and their cutscenes, get the slew of voice actors to do the voices, the whole nine yards. It's far more intensive than WoW or LotRO plopping a new zone in because of the voice acting and the need to make the writing seamless with the rest of the game. It would be good to have, and I fully acknowledge (as I did in the article, if you noticed) that a game that's not even three years old isn't going to have the options in-place that a game nearing ten years old is going to have. I find it ironic, considering I've seen far more folks complaining about the game not having every single feature these more mature games already have, like Athena springing fully formed from Zeus' brow.
Your mileage may vary.
Your still looking at it from a particular perspective and not the same one that IMO the developers are looking at it.
First of all adding alternate leveling paths is something that could be very easily added to the game. At the end of each chapter you are sent to the fleet the simple thing to do is add a new quest giver to the fleet and modify the begining quest of each chapter to include another NPC you can talk to that would give you side missions similar to how you can a quest giver for the bonus missions on Fleet. Alot of the NPC animations have already been rendered therefore using them again is not an impossibility and Bioware has already said that Voice Acting was not the most expensive element of the game's design. It was coding with an incomplete engine and making it respond and accept all of the different possible conversation options. The narrative can be created to be seperate from the main narrative of the game by being a more stand alone side mission if they so chose. They have the tools to do it the real question is why do it and how much would it cost to add those new paths with the same level of polish as the rest of the game?
The DEVS aren't adding a new leveling path because that's not what most players would want to see and not what would bring back a lot of the players that aren't currently subbing and are playing F2P. For the amount of energy effort and the cost required they could do something that fans of the game have asked for since create a digital or boxed expansion with multiple planets including new class stories. That would bring back far more players have players purchase the content and give players what they really want.
Also don't forget Blizzard's decision to redo it's game was because of a few reasons
A.) The Pile of Money they were sitting on
B.) People not playing or needing to play any of the content anymore
C.) Attempting to attract former WoW players to come back to the game
The decision Blizzard made with CATA was one that did not go over well with many players and saw the beginning of their massive sub decline. With regards to LOTRO they have added some other leveling paths through the game and have been enhancing it slowly however none of the quests with regards to side missions are anywhere near as polished as the EPIC quest which has not changed and still consists of kill X quests. It can add a little flavour and spice to the leveling process but for me did nothing to solve the tedium that leveling becomes for me in LOTRO.
Bioware could make all of those changes that you are suggesting even at a very high quality level and not interfere with their narrative structure at all they could just reference those side quests and include them as part of a storyline in a high level expansion further down the line. I think there would be far more outrage that they went and added all of this high quality leveling content while I have yet to continue the amazing class storyline that I started when I first logged in.
seems a very negative article that covers none of the positives, even the ones which go against the points raised for example the variety of levelling methods - it isnt just 2 paths and if you think it is you dont know the game; the fact they add new raids, new fp, new modes seems to have been overlooked
the author may believe the game need a complete redesign to survive, i totally disagree - the game is well populated, many people are enjoying the game in every zone including the end game and from what we know financially even from just the cash shop, ToR is doing pretty well currently
Still, I would love to see what their plans are for a full expansion, what lessons they have learned and how they would apply those lessons learned to see what they can come up with.
Well, not to harp, but when it comes to longevity, there are a couple of major detractors that keep this game from being great, in my opinion. One thing I have issues with is the fact that the Jedi combat is just so... Bland, and uninspiring. Honestly it just sucks (considering it is supposed to be Mele), and it is all mouse click oriented. I know click fests are a staple of MMORPG's but there are a lot of better ways they could have built in a combo system. Look at AOC. It took a chance on their combo system and it actually made the game feel like you had more input on sword play. Games like the Jedi Outcast series had already established a very acrobatic and fluid combat system, so I'm left wondering, how much creativity they really put into the game, if it was supposed to have been "Genre defining".
One other thing that annoys me now is the fact that it has taken this long for them to implement the player housing and guild ships/instances, considering they had such a large roadmap to borrow from (past Lucas arts and EA technology). It really should have come about a long time ago, rather than festoon us with a barrage of the same raids in all new " Hard or NIghtmare" mode. My idea of fun isn't necessarily taking the same instance and making 3 versions of it in various difficulty levels.... I'd rather see some things that offer community growth, like mini games. Perhaps having some Pazaak Dens or Swoop Tracks, or having my living space being my ship, which I can personalize, and invite friends and guild members over to check out raid trophies, or play mini games with them in my ship (or their ship even). I mean, they were annoying in SWTOR because you were just competing against pre-established times or routines and it was a checkpoint for you to complete, but wouldn't it be fun if they could transform those things into private entertainment or even pvp matches for friends and guildees?
Touching back on the raids and various difficulty levels... It seems like since the mechanics change from one difficulty to the next in the Raids and Flashpoints they were just taking the easy way out, rather than providing a new and different instance material. it could have gone a long way to providing a lot of story telling options, or lore missions (like finding ways back to old places in the original KOTOR games). Who wouldn't want to go back to the Rakata camp on the planet that was shielding the star forge, and find remnants of those old story lines... Imagine huge pieces of the demolished star forge on the surface of the planet? Tracking down stories related to past companions from the original games? They really kind of missed the mark, and it's kind of a shame since they really wrote the book on the best KOTOR game of the 2 original ones. I'm kind of ready to move on from SWTOR and am looking for them to make a new KOTOR game outright, that continues the story of some new exceptional force wielder, rather than continuing the SWTOR version of being a blah blah Jedi whose light saber can't even cut through an opponents weapon.
Sorry to rip and rant, but the failure of including some of these ideas has been what has made me dread logging in as of late. There is just nothing that offers a great sense of community, when you compare it to features that came built in to other past games. I know people will always flame the game and say "Oh they are just copying so and so," but if it is a popular idea in that game, then what is the harm of taking the best of every game and incorporating it into one game?
Decent article. It was critical but fair, and didn't slam the game mindlessly. I greatly prefer the sci-fi setting to swords-n-sorcery, but I felt SWTOR wasn't half as replayable as something like LOTRO or WoW. The story-centric planets are too rigid in design and the galaxy is far less explorable than the basic continents of other fantasy MMOs.
Originally posted by Impacthound Decent article. It was critical but fair, and didn't slam the game mindlessly. I greatly prefer the sci-fi setting to swords-n-sorcery, but I felt SWTOR wasn't half as replayable as something like LOTRO or WoW. The story-centric planets are too rigid in design and the galaxy is far less explorable than the basic continents of other fantasy MMOs.
Before something can be replayable, it has to be worth finishing a first time. Personally, out of the three games mentioned, I would say TOR is the only one that even gets past that threshold.
Peace is a lie, there is only passion. Through passion, I gain strength. Through strength, I gain power. Through power, I gain victory. Through victory, my chains are broken. The Force shall free me.
I totally agree with this article. I never felt it was my story, my character, and thatvI had choices. Playing this game was much more a passive, inert experience like watching a movie.
They should have used space for sandbox play, and planetside questing for theme park, with both providing XP for leveling.
This past week I opted to close my account for now, Star Wars the Old Republic pretty much ran its course-instead of fixing the bugs, the idea of adding new content is add new things like space PVP new huttball maps, makeb and oricon what got my interest in the game itself was the idea of actually character story, but after EA opted to fire those writers a few years back, this game has gotten to boring. It doesn't matter if it is TOR, WOW, RIFT or what ever there is nothing new or special about it. Yes I know there adding something new around May 6 but until they add character story is just another MMO which may have to go the free to play road totally if it wants to stay around.
Comments
This is exactly what happened to me. Leveled 2 toons to the max, one imp and one republic. With only 5 or so class missions per planet,It definitely got tedious.
Step in the arena and break the wall down
If this is true than I am finished in the genre.
I found SWTOR to be just an awful experience. I tried with 2 different toons to make it to max level. It bored me to tears. I finally gave up.
Same reaction I had to WoW. TOR on the other hand I found (for one playthrough per faction) to be the best themepark MMORPG I had ever seen.
Peace is a lie, there is only passion.
Through passion, I gain strength.
Through strength, I gain power.
Through power, I gain victory.
Through victory, my chains are broken.
The Force shall free me.
they could do something with the forsaken planets -
add passing TIME
i.e. a daytime nighttime cycle
and add quests for night, like Age of Conan has
Its just very mediocre all round & does nothing particularly well. Being Star Wars I had such high hopes but I can't even be bothered to go back now that its F2P.
Unless a lot has changed (doubt it) with how the stories work, this is how it works:
You have 4 planets (2 classes on each planet) you stay there for about 8 or so levels (if you follow the story, the more you follow it the faster you're likely to leave it), You are then pushed off into the capital planet, 1 for each side for a total of 2 planets (4 classes on each planet), this is the most dense amount of classes you'll see regularly, all of the classes for that side are together. You stay there for a bit longer until you get your ship (or in some cases get it back).
At this point you are free to go anywhere you like, you can even go to Hoth at a very low level (i've done this), you'll probably die at that level but you can do it, There also won't be any quests but you can do it. You can go to almost any planet on the map and fight monsters if you wish. The planets don't open up one at a time as you progress through the story after you get the ship. They all open up once you get your ship repeat they all open up at the same time. (some of the expansions might be different, i think theres one planet that is end game that doesn't open up until you are level 55, but that I believe is only level gated, not story gated). The only big difference I see here is that you can't go to the republic worlds version or their capital planet, that sucks and i still would love to see that changed, but they don't open up like A>B>C>D>E>F like the article seems to make it sound. It goes like this A>B>all the rest of the planets>F(which is level gated).
Granted you have a story to follow but after the first two worlds you can ditch those and just do the world planet/bonus version of said world once you are high enough level. Should they open up the story for more replay? Yeah thats a given but they also got to take into account if thats feasible or a good idea and they have determined that isn't at this time. You do periodically go back and do stuff on these starter worlds, Sith warrior storyline is a good example, sadly it's if i recall correctly in an instance so pfft but you do at least end up back on that world for a little bit.
The way the game works is very similar to other MMOs including the two listed, once you get out of the starting area you can go to other parts of the world (or in swtor case other worlds themselves). If you go to higher level areas before you are ready in either of those two games the mobs will destroy you, and you won't have any quests...just like swtor.
PS. oh yeah, doing the whole cata thing..from what i remember didn't work out too well for them, so yeah theres that.
Help me Bioware, you're my only hope.
Is ToR going to be good? Dude it's Bioware making a freaking star wars game, all signs point to awesome. -G4tv MMo report.
Last I heard, they still had nearly 3 years to go on the contract. For those commenting on the EA/Disney 10-year agreement, please bear in mind that that particular overarching contract was more generic, just for any kind of Star Wars game, not specifically SWTOR.
Oh, there's other ways to level, certainly, GSF, on-rails space, PVP, Flashpoints, but that wasn't my point. The actual core game is what I was focusing on. All those other bits are far more easily moddable because they're add-ons.
I must say that this comment amused me a great deal. And you should be aware that I'm actually more often accused of being a paid shill because I pull more punches about the game than most people do, so it amused me to be lumped in with the haters. Also, your estimation of where SWTOR ranks in Western MMOs? Almost right. It's #2 behind WoW, per my interview with Jeff Hickman and Bruce Maclean on this very site last month. They said over 1 million unique logins per month, so it's not a game that's doing poorly.
On the other hand, I am willing to acknowledge what I perceive to be the game's limitations despite being an open SWTOR fangirl. Me, I'd freakin' love it if BWA could thump down twenty new planets and let us run around willy-nilly in terms of story. However, their basic core design makes that developmentally prohibitive. It could be done with enough devs back on the payroll and willingness to pony up for the excellent voice-acting the game is deservedly famous for. Do I see that happening? Nope. I'd love to be proven wrong on the matter, though.
It's not specific to TOR, but there is no reason to believe it doesn't include it. And it seems unlikely that if Disney thought of TOR as a failure that they would give EA a ten year contract for all things Star Wars, they wouldn't want the IP in the hands of people they thought would devalue it.
Peace is a lie, there is only passion.
Through passion, I gain strength.
Through strength, I gain power.
Through power, I gain victory.
Through victory, my chains are broken.
The Force shall free me.
Technically EA doesn't hold a contract for online titles, disney retained those.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
I thought they only retained "online" in the sense of browser based/mobile gaming? They made it pretty clear with statements around the time they shut down LucasArts that they had zero interest in doing in house "core" gaming.
EDIT: "The agreement covers titles aimed at core gamers on "all interactive platforms"; Disney retains the rights to make casual and social games in the Star Wars universe on mobile devices, tablets and the web."
Peace is a lie, there is only passion.
Through passion, I gain strength.
Through strength, I gain power.
Through power, I gain victory.
Through victory, my chains are broken.
The Force shall free me.
I suppose leveling my Smuggler from 43-49 on a work night last weekend to finish Chapter 3 doesn't count.
And there are definite negatives to the other games. However, when focusing on my core point - is it easy for BWA to revamp older content versus how these other games do it - then I think it still stands. Bear in mind, I remember when Blizzard swore up and down until they were as blue as their forum posts that we'd never have flying mounts in EK or Kalimdor because it would take too much work to pretty much rebuild their game from the ground up, and they took the time and effort to make it happen anyway. I just see an inflexibility in BioWare's design despite the epic storylines, and I can see how it might impact on the game's future.
Would it be awesome to have side questing planets for something new to do while leveling via story only (not PVP, GSF, FPs)? Sure it would! However, take a look at what BioWare would have to do to make it happen. They'd have to rewrite every single breadcrumb quest to give options to go to multiple places. You know, like those class quests that tell you to go to two different planets, and one is higher level than the other, so the implication is that you do the lower-level one first? Well, if there were multiple NPCs to point you multiple directions of equal level, that'd be really cool! Sort of like how LotRO has NPCs in various towns that will point you to the regional quests in another area if you wanted to.
However, BioWare would have to not only write those quests but animate them and their cutscenes, get the slew of voice actors to do the voices, the whole nine yards. It's far more intensive than WoW or LotRO plopping a new zone in because of the voice acting and the need to make the writing seamless with the rest of the game. It would be good to have, and I fully acknowledge (as I did in the article, if you noticed) that a game that's not even three years old isn't going to have the options in-place that a game nearing ten years old is going to have. I find it ironic, considering I've seen far more folks complaining about the game not having every single feature these more mature games already have, like Athena springing fully formed from Zeus' brow.
Your mileage may vary.
Actually, I find it kind of lame to critize this game on its strongest feature: SWOTR is a unique mmorph where for the first time in my history of mmorpgs I rarely found myself being boring to level up, because of the story lines. So yes this has some downsides like poor replayability when you want to level up for example a shade after having leveled a sage, but other than that I find SWTOR's story telling a magnficient addition to the mmo content out there, worthy of praise rather than attempting to emphasize its downsides.
Beyond that, SWTOR I do not find SWTOR to best mmorpg out there, for other reasons, such as a lack of endgame sufficient to keep me interested.
"If I had the stars of the darkest nights or the diamonds from the deepest ocean, I would forsake them all for your sweet kiss"
Your still looking at it from a particular perspective and not the same one that IMO the developers are looking at it.
First of all adding alternate leveling paths is something that could be very easily added to the game. At the end of each chapter you are sent to the fleet the simple thing to do is add a new quest giver to the fleet and modify the begining quest of each chapter to include another NPC you can talk to that would give you side missions similar to how you can a quest giver for the bonus missions on Fleet. Alot of the NPC animations have already been rendered therefore using them again is not an impossibility and Bioware has already said that Voice Acting was not the most expensive element of the game's design. It was coding with an incomplete engine and making it respond and accept all of the different possible conversation options. The narrative can be created to be seperate from the main narrative of the game by being a more stand alone side mission if they so chose. They have the tools to do it the real question is why do it and how much would it cost to add those new paths with the same level of polish as the rest of the game?
The DEVS aren't adding a new leveling path because that's not what most players would want to see and not what would bring back a lot of the players that aren't currently subbing and are playing F2P. For the amount of energy effort and the cost required they could do something that fans of the game have asked for since create a digital or boxed expansion with multiple planets including new class stories. That would bring back far more players have players purchase the content and give players what they really want.
Also don't forget Blizzard's decision to redo it's game was because of a few reasons
A.) The Pile of Money they were sitting on
B.) People not playing or needing to play any of the content anymore
C.) Attempting to attract former WoW players to come back to the game
The decision Blizzard made with CATA was one that did not go over well with many players and saw the beginning of their massive sub decline. With regards to LOTRO they have added some other leveling paths through the game and have been enhancing it slowly however none of the quests with regards to side missions are anywhere near as polished as the EPIC quest which has not changed and still consists of kill X quests. It can add a little flavour and spice to the leveling process but for me did nothing to solve the tedium that leveling becomes for me in LOTRO.
Bioware could make all of those changes that you are suggesting even at a very high quality level and not interfere with their narrative structure at all they could just reference those side quests and include them as part of a storyline in a high level expansion further down the line. I think there would be far more outrage that they went and added all of this high quality leveling content while I have yet to continue the amazing class storyline that I started when I first logged in.
seems a very negative article that covers none of the positives, even the ones which go against the points raised for example the variety of levelling methods - it isnt just 2 paths and if you think it is you dont know the game; the fact they add new raids, new fp, new modes seems to have been overlooked
the author may believe the game need a complete redesign to survive, i totally disagree - the game is well populated, many people are enjoying the game in every zone including the end game and from what we know financially even from just the cash shop, ToR is doing pretty well currently
The Truth is simple
People that enjoy in TOR are the same that have played multiple playthroughs of various Bioware games and other Single player games.
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Same as SWG. 10-years. I believe it was stated in the beginning they had plans for 10-years worth of content.
Well, not to harp, but when it comes to longevity, there are a couple of major detractors that keep this game from being great, in my opinion. One thing I have issues with is the fact that the Jedi combat is just so... Bland, and uninspiring. Honestly it just sucks (considering it is supposed to be Mele), and it is all mouse click oriented. I know click fests are a staple of MMORPG's but there are a lot of better ways they could have built in a combo system. Look at AOC. It took a chance on their combo system and it actually made the game feel like you had more input on sword play. Games like the Jedi Outcast series had already established a very acrobatic and fluid combat system, so I'm left wondering, how much creativity they really put into the game, if it was supposed to have been "Genre defining".
One other thing that annoys me now is the fact that it has taken this long for them to implement the player housing and guild ships/instances, considering they had such a large roadmap to borrow from (past Lucas arts and EA technology). It really should have come about a long time ago, rather than festoon us with a barrage of the same raids in all new " Hard or NIghtmare" mode. My idea of fun isn't necessarily taking the same instance and making 3 versions of it in various difficulty levels.... I'd rather see some things that offer community growth, like mini games. Perhaps having some Pazaak Dens or Swoop Tracks, or having my living space being my ship, which I can personalize, and invite friends and guild members over to check out raid trophies, or play mini games with them in my ship (or their ship even). I mean, they were annoying in SWTOR because you were just competing against pre-established times or routines and it was a checkpoint for you to complete, but wouldn't it be fun if they could transform those things into private entertainment or even pvp matches for friends and guildees?
Touching back on the raids and various difficulty levels... It seems like since the mechanics change from one difficulty to the next in the Raids and Flashpoints they were just taking the easy way out, rather than providing a new and different instance material. it could have gone a long way to providing a lot of story telling options, or lore missions (like finding ways back to old places in the original KOTOR games). Who wouldn't want to go back to the Rakata camp on the planet that was shielding the star forge, and find remnants of those old story lines... Imagine huge pieces of the demolished star forge on the surface of the planet? Tracking down stories related to past companions from the original games? They really kind of missed the mark, and it's kind of a shame since they really wrote the book on the best KOTOR game of the 2 original ones. I'm kind of ready to move on from SWTOR and am looking for them to make a new KOTOR game outright, that continues the story of some new exceptional force wielder, rather than continuing the SWTOR version of being a blah blah Jedi whose light saber can't even cut through an opponents weapon.
Sorry to rip and rant, but the failure of including some of these ideas has been what has made me dread logging in as of late. There is just nothing that offers a great sense of community, when you compare it to features that came built in to other past games. I know people will always flame the game and say "Oh they are just copying so and so," but if it is a popular idea in that game, then what is the harm of taking the best of every game and incorporating it into one game?
Before something can be replayable, it has to be worth finishing a first time. Personally, out of the three games mentioned, I would say TOR is the only one that even gets past that threshold.
Peace is a lie, there is only passion.
Through passion, I gain strength.
Through strength, I gain power.
Through power, I gain victory.
Through victory, my chains are broken.
The Force shall free me.
They should have used space for sandbox play, and planetside questing for theme park, with both providing XP for leveling.